Remembrance
by Navy Babe
Summary: He gently kissed his fingertips, and laid them upon the top of her casket.' This is hopefully my last post 'Twilight' fic!


Remembrance

Disclaimer: Still not mine, and still never will be!  
Rating: K+  
Spoilers: 'Twilight'

Author's Notes: So remember when I said that I had posted the last of my death related fics?

...I lied. But I'm hoping this is the last one cuz if it goes on for much longer I'm gonna need some serious Prozac. Please R&R, and tell me what you thought, especially about the ending. I didn't like it a whole lot, so some feedback would be great!

Abby wore white to her funeral. The people who weren't familiar with the team looked at them strangely, and thought she was being disrespectful. "I wear black every day." She told Ducky as they walked into the church. "I wanted to be different for Kate today, I think she'd like it." And so the team didn't comment on her strange dress.

Gibbs met her family for the first time that day. Her mother and father both looked upon him knowingly, almost lovingly, revealing how Kate really felt about him. Her oldest brother looked at him accusingly.

'You should have kept her safe.' His eyes tell the older man.

'I know.' He silently replies. Her other siblings don't know how to react to the man their sister so often talked about, but none of them really knew.

He was in pain, just like everybody else there. He knew he would have to get up and talk about what a wonderful agent and friend she was, and all he really wanted to do was tell everyone that she was a beautiful woman and he worshipped the ground she walked on. That she was the first woman to stand up to him, and he loved her for it. That he'd never forget the way that she smelled, the way she felt when she was pressed up against him (which happened surprisingly often), or the grin that she always seemed to have on her face.

He bit his cheek so hard that it bled, so that he wouldn't say what he wanted to.

Tony got up to speak about her first. He told everyone about how he'd miss their banter, and her laugh. He said that he could have fallen in love with her, and had entertained the thought of it more than once. But he laughed sadly, and said she was too smart for that, for him, and she had actually told him so. He was looking at Gibbs the entire time, but the older man didn't even acknowledge it.

Abby got up to talk about Kate next, but was overcome by sobs after two sentences. Tony had to help her down, and was currently holding her, rubbing her back softly. Realization dawned on the crowd about her. She loved Kate, just as they all had, and was hurting from her loss as much as they were.

He got up to talk about her, and was careful in choosing his words. To the outsider, it would have seemed that he was her boss, that he was sorry she was gone, but that he would eventually get over it. He ignored some of the glares that he got for that. But to the team and others that knew him, he was as obvious as an open book. Kate's death had torn him up, and Jethro Gibbs would never quite be the same.

After the service, one by one, people filed up to the casket to pay their last respects to Caitlin Todd. It's a closed casket of course. Gibbs figures that her family wouldn't want to see her with a gaping hole in her forehead. Wouldn't want to see her the way he saw her every day when she was in their morgue. How he saw her every night in his recurring nightmare.

He watched from his seat in the third row as people said goodbye to her. Her ex-boyfriend, the latest one, Ryan, made a big scene. He began crying when he got up to the coffin and laid his big beefy hands on the casket, and began yelling 'Why?'. Most of those in attendance thought that it was because he really loved her. The team knew they had only dated a week and that Kate was about to break it off anyway, and watched the grown man make a fool of himself.

He was the last one to go up. The team were all back in their seats, watching silently as their leader walked up the steps to the box that Kate laid in. He paused for a minute, regarding the casket carefully, before he finally stepped up. He gently kissed his fingertips, and laid them upon the top of her casket. "I'm so sorry Katie." He murmured, rubbing his hand over the smooth wood.

His throat closed up and his vision blurred as he walked back to his seat. Ducky patted his back like a father would a son, and Abby flung herself into his arms. He stroked her hair softly, her regular pig-tails absent. They were all hurting, and it was his job to keep them together. It was why he couldn't let his tears fall, why he couldn't cry for Caitlin Todd.

Two months later...

He visits her whenever he can, whenever the job allows him to. He always makes sure that everything is neat; the way he knows she'd want it. He always brings a bouquet of her favourite flowers.

He can finally grieve for her. He still looks back and wonders what he could have done differently that day, but has accepted the fact that it's done. That he can't change it and he can't bring her back.

He killed Ari two days ago. No one was with him, and he wonders if anyone even knows yet. The team knows, even though he didn't tell them. It seems like a huge burden has been lifted off his shoulders, and he can rejoin the land of the living, just like she would have wanted him to.

He came here to tell her about it. He squats down beside her tombstone, and runs his thumb over the engravings. "Hi Kate." He murmurs, bowing his head. "I finally did it. I got the bastard." He smirks and chuckles. "But I'm sure that you already know that." He sighs. "I just wanted to be the one to tell you. It was quick...a bullet between the eyes, just like he did to you."

He pauses and looks at her name again, and reaches into his pocket for the picture of her that he carries with him always. "I can move on now. I want you to know that I'll be okay. And I'll make sure that everyone is okay too." He feels a few tears make their way down his cheek, but he doesn't bother to wipe them away.

"I'll never forget you Katie."

Please review, and maybe then I'll give you my fluffy Kate-is-still-alive fic! Oh, and just in case you're curious...I was going to have Gibbs kill Ari by sticking him in a room full of butterflies...:sniggers: Yeah, thought that would be amusing...


End file.
